


Wood and Stone

by strawberriesandtophats



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Control, Gen, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 03:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14096715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: A city is a process, a continuous, circular plan.





	Wood and Stone

You didn’t let people like this into the Patrician’s Palace said the expression of every well-bred citizen inside the Rats’ Chamber as the Heads of the Guilds and others discussed the topic at hand, which was always and would always be, the city.

Washerwomen and shopkeepers and shoemakers and coppers in dented armor.

Drivers and journalists and stablemen and bakers and ladies of the night.

Thieves and beggars and swindlers in gold. 

People that should use the servants’ entrance. Or possibly break a window.

That was how things had been once, and should be always if not for bloody Vetinari, watching the scene with that curiously blank expression on his face.

Not stroll through the front gates with their heads held high, carrying with them the stink of the streets.

 Blood and sweat and food and cheap tobacco.

One might understand why maids were there, or assassins and clerks and Palace Guards. They all had their uses.

The city was moving on, the Patrician had said, spreading a map of the city on the table so that the axe embedded in it shivered. Changing with the times.

A city is a process, a continuous, circular plan, the eyes of the Heads of the Guilds said.

It gives and takes and makes things and has laws.

And we are the city.


End file.
